Charles Mingus: the Sound of Struggle

charles-mingus

To say that Charles Mingus was an eclectic character would be a significant

understatement. His fame as a composer and performer is paralleled only by
his reputation as the Angry Man of Jazz: prone to and battling with clinical
depression throughout several decades, Mingus led a life studded with
anecdotes detailing a stern and quick-tempered personality, both on and off
the stage. His proverbial fits of temper often entailed a sudden interruption of
his gigs, with the composer erupting, without notice, into actual violence
toward fellow musicians or, in some cases, against members of the audience.
Other occasions, instead, saw him abruptly dismissing his entire band mid-
performance, himself included. The complexity and irascibility of Mingus
character was particularly evident in his relation to the music industry, too:
when, due to poor sales of the 1963 masterpiece The Black Saint and the
Sinner Lady, Impulse! Records refused to increase Mingus weekly paycheck,
producer Bob Thiele arrived one day at work only to find a knife stabbed in his
chair, together with the message where the fuck is my money? Mingus. Once
in 1959, when Mingus was signed to Columbia Records, he even stormed in the
accounting department of the label, brandishing a shotgun and vehemently
claiming unpaid royalties.

In any case, attributing Mingus controversial behaviour to his declining mental

health is probably a stark oversimplification, as much of his attitude is
profoundly informed by a proud and uncompromising plea for artistic integrity
and even his most excessive outcries against the music industry can be re-
evaluated if put in the right context, namely one of tremendous inequality, race
segregation and complex identity relations. What appears evident, in any case,
based on a close examination of Mingus artistic output, his engagement with
contemporary musical landscape and tradition, as well as his own biography,
are a sense of direction and a feeling of purpose, a passionate and often
desperate attempt to deploy wider commentaries via an unconventional and
ever-evolving aesthetic form. As critic Gary Giddins aptly pointed out in his
book Visions of Jazz, Mingus was the most persistently apocalyptic voice of
this genre. He was the black-music experience in the United states. This is
because Mingus music is inherently political and its hybridization, its questing
after form, its improvisation, competitiveness, impertinence, outrage,
intellectualization, joy, emotionalism, bitterness, comedy, parody and
frustration reflect the complexity of a socio-political discourse, which the
composer never shied away from, but, instead, confronted with full force,
impeccable clarity and a hint of cynicism.

I am Charles Mingus. Half-Black man, Yellow man Half-Yellow Not even

Yellow, not even white enough to pass for nothing but black, and not too light
to be called white
Born on April 22nd, 1922, in Nogales, AZ, Charles Mingus was confronted with
the problematic issue of racial characterization ever since his own birth, due to
the rather unorthodox character of his descent: his father, in fact, was a former
army officer of African and Swedish parentage, while his mother, Harriet, who
died when Charles was only a few months old, had Chinese and African-
American parents. The juxtaposition of these ancestry traits made it virtually
impossible, for Mingus, to identify himself as belonging to any specific group. In
his 1971 memoir Beneath the Underdog, he explicitly stated: I am Charles
Mingus. Half-Black man, Yellow man Half-Yellow Not even Yellow, not even
white enough to pass for nothing but black, and not too light to be called
white. Upon moving to Los Angeles, however, it immediately became clear
that Mingus life would come to be inseparably associated with the experience
of African-American communities. A particularly significant episode, in this
sense, took place when Charles was attacked by a group of Mexican kids, who
insisted on calling him a nigger. While, therefore, the social context of Los
Angeles in the 1930s imposed a notion of blackness upon him, Mingus never
perceived himself as such, but somehow suspended among a plethora of racial
characterizations, ultimately labelling himself an underdog, namely a kind of
mongrel Not light enough to belong to the almost-white lite and not dark
enough to belong with the beautiful elegant blacks. There really was no skin
color exactly like his. Therefore, while growing up in the neighborhood of
Watts, he felt persecuted by the white man and the black man, consequently
deciding to hang out with the outcasts, the Japanese, Mexicans, Greeks,
Italians and Jews.

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Music, however, represented an excellent form of escapism. Having initially

picked the trombone and proved to be an excellent cello player, Mingus moved
on to play the bass as a teenager and soon proceeded to build an impressive
curriculum. Already in the 1940s, he performed as a regular sideman with Louis
Armstrong and Kid Ory and, having moved to New York in 1951, he frequently
appeared in bands fronted by Charlie Parker, Miles Davis and Bud Powell. In
1956, he started his own outfit, an ever-changing ensemble of experimental
musicians called The Jazz Workshop, that contributed to the recording of some
of Mingus most memorable albums, as well as countless live performances.
The Workshops repertoire exhibits a wide variety of influences, ranging from
Duke Ellington to African-American gospel music, from Mexican folk music to
Thelonious Monk, from Haitian traditional songs to New Orleans jazz. Yet, just
as Mingus own profile eludes any clear-cut racial definition, his music cannot
be encapsulated by an unambiguous formalization. This equation is proposed
by the composer himself in his autobiography, clearly stating that the only
plausible characterization is that of musician: Charles Mingus is a musician, a
mongrel musician, who plays beautiful, who plays ugly, who plays lovely, who
plays masculine, who plays feminine, who plays music, who plays all sounds:
loud, soft, unheard sounds, sounds, sounds, sounds, solid sounds, sounds,
sounds A musician (who) just loves to play with sound.

Bebop represented an attempt to re-conceptualize jazz, snatching it from a

white-controlled music industry and artistic landscape, via the emphasis on
techniques and styles setting it apart from its European or white American
counterpart
Based on these consideration, it is already possible to identify the pivotal role
assigned by Mingus to music in breaking free from racial characterizations and
stereotypes and it is from this perspective that his discography ought to be
examined. Elaborating a form of artistic expression able to articulate a
discourse of this kind, however, would undoubtedly prove to be a particularly
challenging goal, given the stereotypically black nature of jazz. Economic
segregation and racial inequalities in the decades between the wars fuelled
politics of dissent among African-American communities, resulting in the
articulation of oppositional identities passionately proclaiming the need for
social change. According to historian Franz Kofsky, this entailed the quest for a
musical vehicle for expressing black dissatisfaction with the status quo [], a
manifesto of rebellious black musicians unwilling to submit to further
exploitation. This inevitably entailed the definition of a new concept of
modernity and the consequent establishment of a politically engaged avant-
garde. The 1940s and 50s, in this sense, paved the way for a radical
transformation of jazz aesthetics, particularly in connection with the rise of
bebop, a sub-genre characterized by eclectic harmonic variations, articulate
syncopation, a fast tempo, swift tonal changes and a large emphasis on
improvisation. To quote the words of veteran Bay Area critic Grover Sales, this
was the first genuine avant-garde movement in jazz. Widely popularized by
musicians like Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins
and Bud Powell, bebop represented an attempt to re-conceptualize jazz,
snatching it from a white-controlled music industry and artistic landscape, via
the emphasis on techniques and styles setting it apart from its European or
white American counterpart, such as blue notes, swing, improvisation and
vocalized timbres. The political struggle for equality, therefore, adopted bebop
as a means to grant the black virtuoso musician greater artistic autonomy,
adopting a newborn language to champion a timeless black folk tradition.
One of the greatest accomplishment of bebop was to make racial discourse and
activism much more overt. Also thanks to the contribution of periodicals like
Metronome, debates on injustice and segregation within the music industry
penetrated the public sphere with unprecedented force: musicians began
openly denouncing cases of segregated performances and refusing to play in
blacks-only venues. Charles Mingus, who always positioned himself at the
forefront of the struggle for equality promoted by African-Americans, played an
active role in bringing forward local initiatives, both in Los Angeles and, after
1951, in New York. At a very young age, in fact, he joined the American
Federation of Musicians (Local 767), a segregated union for African-Americans.
Founded in 1920, this served as a meeting place, a platform for the exchange
of ideas and a rehearsal space for black musicians who were denied
membership in its white counterpart, Local 47. Mingus passionately
campaigned in favor of the desegregation of the American Federation of
Musicians in Los Angeles, which finally took place in 1953.

Charles_Mingus_1976_croppedAt the same time, Mingus, whose life was so

deeply characterized by racial ambiguity and perceived himself as a musician
even before belonging to any specific ethnic group, could not obviously entirely
and wholeheartedly sympathize with the ideology and ideas of the bebop
movement and was well aware of the risks of composing music consistently
associated with the African-American tradition. He never sided with any self-
referential and celebratory exaltation of blackness in jazz: he even came to
harshly criticize Louis Armstrong, accusing him of intentionally perpetuating
black stereotypes with his music and performances. As a result, he opted for a
massive subversion of the aesthetic standards of jazz, ultimately rejecting the
very notion of jazz itself. In 1963, for example, he reproached a journalist who
had labelled him a jazz musician, stating: dont call me a jazz musician. To
me the word jazz means nigger, discrimination, second-class citizenship, the
whole back-of-the-bus bit. Disentangling musical expression from any
unnegotiable ethnic identity was, therefore, a prime goal for the composer and
this leitmotif is extremely prominent throughout his career. In 1964 he
famously proclaimed Fuck negro Fuck jazz. I want to be accepted as I
want to be accepted as an American now with all of the rights or forget it and
Ill show Kruschev just how to guide his missiles due South I can write good
music with a beat or without so I want to be called a musician not a Negro
musician or a white musician. I want my rights as the musics musician. I dont
want my music to sell like hotcakes. I want it to sell like good music not
stopped by a word jazz. Just as labelling a person to a race was extremely
limiting, Mingus believed that music ought to reflect the complexity of this
relationship: African music belongs in Africa. American music, which is what
we play, belongs with the people who have a feeling of freedom and like to play
together without discrimination. It is evident, then, how he did not altogether
reject the penetration of political themes, including a racial discourse, in music.
Rather, he encouraged it, albeit in a different form, namely one that could
account for their multi-faceted intricacies.
charles-mingus (1)

It is not just a question of color anymore, he once told journalist and critic
Nat Hentoff, its getting deeper than that. People are getting so
fragmented Fewer and fewer people are making a real effort anymore to find
exactly who they are and to build on that knowledge. Most people are forced to
do things they dont want most of the time, and so they get to the point where
they feel they no longer have any choice about anything important, including
who they are. We create our own slavery. But Im going to keep on getting
through and finding out the kind of man I am through my music. Thats the one
place I can be free. Looking, therefore, at the context in which Mingus
received his musical education and proceeded to embark on his career, it
suddenly appears evident that disaggregating jazz from its traditional
techniques and ideology, hence making it able to express the complexity of a
discourse going far beyond a binary black-and-white dichotomy, and concerned
with wider issues of self and becoming, destiny and freedom, would inevitably
entail an aesthetic revolution and the definition of a new form and style, in
direct opposition to the reigning bebop aesthetics. While, therefore, the latter
encouraged the use of crystalized forms and conventional solutions, Mingus
challenged their centrality, systematically opting for the most eclectic
solutions: the standardized bebop five-piece, constituted of two brass
instrument and a rhythmic section made of piano, bass and drums, was
replaced with much larger and unconventional ensembles; the emphasis on
standardized phrases and harmonies exchanged for a manic emphasis on
individual solos Mingus liked to think of his music as a free conversation
among the performers; bebops tendency toward a more immediate and
simplistic style substituted by an eclectic maximalist approach. Even more
importantly, Mingus re-negotiated the ideological exclusivity of jazz, by
incorporating elements of European classical music: my identity is mixed
together with Beethoven, Bach and Brahms, he famously told his wife Sue and
always strived to summon a primitive, mystic, supra-minded communication,
which he heard both in Charlie Parker and in the late Beethoven quartets and,
even more, in Stravinsky.

We dont need a vocalist. This band can have an argument with instruments
At this point, one can legitimately wonder how such a radical stance with
regards to the re-definition of the form of artistic expression can be a mirror for
the re-elaboration of its political significance. In other words: to what extent
does Mingus musical revolution mark an equally significant re-thinking of its
ideology? A closer look at his discography will undoubtedly help addressing this
question. The very first issue to come to terms with is the almost complete
absence of lyrics in his compositions: how can purely instrumental music have
such a clear political orientation? For Mingus, music did not really require lyrics,
and this could draw attention upon the music as it is being performed, exactly
what Mingus hoped to achieve as a composer: We dont need a vocalist. This
band can have an argument with instruments. The idea of a conversation
among the performers, already mentioned above, aptly served as a means to
convey a precise narrative and is further enhanced by the fact that a great deal
of the Jazz Workshops performances was largely made of individual musicians
improvisations. Yet, despite being partially concealed by his double bass,
Mingus nonetheless acted as some sort of conductor, quickly steering the
performance in such a way as to enhance the interplay of the various
instruments: whenever his band insisted on a particular phrase or groove, he
would immediately alter the time signature; whenever they locked on a specific
melody, he would proceed to operate a radical change of key; whenever an
instrument moved to execute a solo, he would direct another to solo on top of
the first, and then another, and another, ultimately juxtaposing them in a
layered cacophony of organized chaos.

Music, Mingus used to say, is a language of emotions and these stylistic

solutions enrich the compositions with a sense of urgency and of passionate,
combative dialogue. Yet, the nature of this dialogue is never a peaceful one. As
one of the Workshops musicians brilliantly put it, Mingus liked the sound of a
struggle and it is exactly this notion that his music continuously engaged with.
Racial struggle, the musicians struggle with the music industry and the
government, struggle against political apathy, struggle against the very
definition of race are prime leitmotifs in Mingus discography. At the same time,
the titles of his works usually play a central role in deploying a political
narrative and in rendering it explicit: Prayer for Passive Resistance, for
example, was written in honor of the 1960 sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina,
which played a crucial role in the history of local desegregation; Oh Lord, Dont
Let Them Drop that Atomic Bomb on Me, instead, is concerned with the threat
of nuclear warfare in the context of the Cold War.

Very often, though, the titles of Mingus compositions are extremely cryptic, but
their ambiguity is unmistakably symptomatic of the complexity of the
composers politics. A prime example of this intuition is represented by the
1956 record Pithecanthropus Erectus, in which the themes of progress,
development of mankind, as well as racial themes are intertwined. In the liner
notes of the album, the author explained: It depicts musically my conception
of the modern counterpart of the first man to stand erect how proud he was,
considering himself the first to ascend from all fours, pounding his chest and
preaching his superiority over all the mammals still in a prone position.
Overcome with self-esteem, he goes out to rule the world, if not the universe,
but both his own failure to realize the inevitable emancipation of those he
sought to enslave, and his greed in attempting to stand on a false security,
deny him not only the right of being a man, but finally destroy him
completely. This is clearly a political allegory of domination in American
society. The eponymous first track begins with the various instruments, most
notably piano, brass and saxophone, chasing one another and symbolizing
competing voices within society. The piece, then, slowly builds up, with a
lengthy middle section consisting of several individual, often overlapping,
solos. As the volume, tempo and intensity of the track keep growing, one is
struck by how the individual voices begin working in concert and rise up with a
polyphonic sense of cooperation. Yet, the brief last movement of the track is a
chaotic and cacophonous section, with screeching saxophones, syncopated
drumming and abrasive piano lines, perfectly exemplifying how the
juxtaposition of the individual voices quickly descends into a struggle, if not full
revolution.

Pithecanthropus Erectus is not an explicitly political track, but, given the

context of Mingus political beliefs and artistic ideals, together with the
inclusion of unmistakably political liner notes in the record cover, it is
impossible not to draw a parallel with the ongoing struggles for justice and
equality of the Civil Rights Movement. At the same time, the record seems to
describe a narrative that goes well beyond the boundaries of a purely racial
discourse and account, instead, for a notion of struggle cutting across ethnic
divisions: it is, therefore, a cynic illustration of the double-edged nature of
progress, a dart of criticism directed against all forms of perceived supremacy
in equal measures, may this be racial, socio-economic, cultural, or
technological. This is apparently very consistent with Mingus own ideology, as
it clearly moves away from the self-referential character and the
unconditionally proud exaltation of blackness championed by bebop jazz: the
revolution taking place in the last moments of Pithecanthropus Erectus is not
exclusively a black one, but that of the mongrels, the underdogs and of all less
fortunate elements of society and, as such, it will be chaotic, disorganized,
noisy, abrasive and cacophonous.

Mingus often stated that Haitian Fight Song may easily be renamed Afro-
American Fight Song, or simply Fight Song, highlighting how notions of
injustice, struggle, uprising and, consequently, revolution have a grander
meaning and cannot possibly restricted to one instance or group only
A similar perspective is articulated in the record that follows Pithecanthropus,
the 1957 masterpiece The Clown, which, to paraphrase the composer,
represents an allegory describing how the mass appetite for kitsch threatened
to crush the singular spirit of the creative artist. Again, it is possible to see
how that of struggle remains the central notion of Mingus compositions,
acquiring, at the same time, a universal significance that goes beyond the
coordinates of racial segregation and activism. The first track, for instance,
Haitian Fight Song, characterized by a regular rhythmic section, with various
solos emerging from a chaotic polyphony, follows a structure similar to
Pithecanthropus Erectus, gradually building tension and finally culminating in
conflicting, revolutionary chaos. The track, as the title implies, is concerned
with the revolution taking place in Haiti in the 1790s; yet, it was written in the
immediate aftermath of Martin Luther Kings mobilization of the Civil Rights
Movement in Alabama. Consequently, Mingus often stated that Haitian Fight
Song may easily be renamed Afro-American Fight Song, or simply Fight Song,
highlighting how notions of injustice, struggle, uprising and, consequently,
revolution have a grander meaning and cannot possibly restricted to one
instance or group only.

In 1964, Mingus put together the finest ensemble he ever performed with,
including Dannie Richmond on drums, Clifford Jordan on saxophone, Johnny
Coles on trumpet, Jaki Byard on piano and, more notably, legendary multi-
reedist Eric Dolphy, flew across the Atlantic and toured in Europe, where he
frequently executed one of his most political and engaging compositions, the
much under-appreciated Meditations on Integration, Parts I & II, often referred
to as Meditations on Inner Peace. This piece engages extensively with topics of
diversity, segregation, social exclusion and, obviously, passionate struggle, and
widely relies upon different instrumental combinations: the first section opens
with a haunting interplay of bass and Dolphys flute, clearly drawing attention
Mingus taste for European classical music, followed by a lengthy piano solo,
later enriched by the addition of bass; subsequently, another piano section
precedes a trio with flute and, again, bass, before the entire piece swiftly
erupts with force, as the brass section comes in. As usual, the emphasis on
individual and overlapping solos makes the various instruments compete for
the listeners attention, symbolizing the struggle immanent to all layers of
society. The sense of urgency and disorder coming to the fore in the last
section of the piece, then, acts as a signifier for the frenzy inevitably brought
about by the lack of social, economic and political integration. While it was
composed in the context of African-American activism, Meditations meaning is
universal and not exclusively tied to any specific racial dichotomy. Recalling the
1964 tour, Mingus claimed: Anyone could play Meditations on that day in this
time of ours when everyone is fighting everyone else all over the world. Man,
woman, religious sects, people in general, colors. I felt like I was praying for
God. Well, its time that people get together and try to fight their way through
to love with something that warms them and brings them together.

Mingus referred to the performances of Meditations on Integration taking place

during the 1964 tours as the highest point of his career, as they perfectly
embodied his ideals, both musically and ideologically. Painfully grounded in the
context of racial discrimination and the struggle for equality, the composer
deployed notions of identity and development as narrative tools to pave the
way for revolution and collective empowerment, regardless of any particular
racial or socio-economic characterization. In this sense, his ideal of revolution
acquires a much more poignant meaning. After all, he considered himself a
revolutionary and confessed that his goal was to be always doing
revolutionary things, things that would alert people, so that they would stop
being so subservient. This ought to start by acquiring a political
consciousness: of oneself, of others and of society at large. The revolution
Mingus is passionately calling for, therefore, is not only one against injustice,
inequality and segregation, but also one against political apathy and
disengagement, which he sees functioning as a harrowing echo chamber for
inequality and injustice. In the 1966 track Dont Let it Happen Here, Mingus
reads the words of the German pastor theologian Martin Niemller, who
vehemently accused German intellectuals of failing to effectively contrast the
rise of Nazi ideology. Over a sorrowful carpet of piano, brass, saxophone and
bass, Mingus tells: One day they came and they took the Communists, and I
said nothing because I was not a Communist / Then one day they came and
they took the people of the Jewish faith, and I said nothing because I was not a
Jew / Then one day they took the unionists, and I said nothing because I was
not a unionist / They burned the Catholic churches one day, and I said nothing
because I was born a Protestant / Then one day they came and they took me,
and I could say nothing because I was as guilty as they were / I was as guilty of
genocide as those who killed eighteen million people along with me / Yes, I was
as guilty of genocide as those who killed the other people with me / And I say
the only way we can avoid this is to look and speak out now / And dont let it
happen here. Plotted against Mingus musical activism, Niemllers words
transcend the context of the Nazi genocide and acquire a much broader
resonance, ultimately embodying an all-inclusive call for justice and awareness:
that the evils of history are a matter of collective concern, that responsibilities
invest all groups in equal measure and that no one is exempt from a moral duty
not to let it happen here.
A formidable bassist, composer, performer, and bandleader, Charles Mingus
was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in 1977 and died in the
Mexican city of Cuernavaca on January 5th, 1979. His music, a powerful
exploration of the emotional language of jazz, still remains synonymous with
great innovation on several levels. His stylistic modernization also reflects a
sense of political commitment, which, while remaining fully anchored in the
contexts and scenarios informing and fuelling the social commentaries
advanced by jazz musicians, amplifies themes and topics, assigning them a
much broader breadth. Mingus was very well aware of and engaged
systematically with issues of racial segregation, inequality, division,
discrimination, injustice and oppression, but remained nonetheless fully aware
of the risks of elaborating a musical genre too closely associated with the
vicissitudes of African-American communities. This is because limiting racial
issues, he believed, to a bipolar black-versus-white dichotomy, was extremely
limiting. As his own biography demonstrates, he perceived the notion of race to
be remarkably multi-faceted, to such an extent that the association with a
specific group was extremely problematic and certainly not immediate. In
response to the context of bebop, he sought to elaborate a style able to
express the complexity of these dynamics, adopting an unpredictable, intricate
and maximalist language: a language of struggle, love, passions and revolution
cutting across racial, economic, political and cultural divisions. A language too
beautiful and complex to be merely jazz.

Alessandro De Arcangelis, 2016

Further reading:

Mingus, C. (1971) Beneath the Underdog. New York: Alfred A. Knopf

Giddins, G. (1998) Visions of Jazz: the First Century. Oxford: Oxford University
Press

Hentoff, N. (1978) Jazz Is. New York: Limelight Editions

Jenkins, T. (2006) I Know What I Know: The Music of Charles Mingus. Westport,
CT: Praeger Publishers

Kofsky, F. (1998) Black Music, White Business: Illuminating the History and
Political Economy of Jazz. London: Pathfinder Books
Santoro, G. (1994) Myself when I Am Real: The Life and Music of Charles
Mingus. Oxford: Oxford University Press